July 2, 2023
New month of July and just like clockwork, the tropical storm season has begun. We saw the development of Hurricane Adrian some 300 miles to the southwest of Cabo San Lucas, never amounting to much besides increasing ocean swells up to three meters or so. Then we were following the formation of Tropical Storm Beatriz off of mainland Mexico, this system was unpredictable as to what path it might follow, never impacting southern Baja, dissipated offshore of Puerta Vallarta, Beatriz did definitely kick up the humidity to highest levels so far this season. Some scattered rain showers were felt closer to Cabo San Lucas on Sunday, but nothing to report so far out of San Jose del Jose, scattered cloud cover, but seas were fairly calm and no Port closures were implemented.
Ocean temperatures are now in the 80 to 85 degree range, swift currents were running at times, swells up and down due to tropical disturbances from the south, tropical season now and it really started feeling like it in recent days, intense humidity. Anglers were finding main bait supplies of caballito, jurelito, some mullet, ballyhoo and slabs of squid, also more bolito baitfish congregating on offshore grounds. Most fishing action is now taking place near the Iman to San Luis Banks.
Anglers found a mix of bottom and surface action. Common practice was to try bottom action early in the day, where a mix of species such as red snapper, yellow snapper, dogtooth snapper, leopard grouper, fortune jack, amberjack, bonito and other great eating species were found, using yo-yo’s jigs were the best bet, but various bait fish were used as well. No huge numbers of any particular fish and success of course varied from day to cay and over various rocky high spots.
These same grounds produced a handful of sailfish, striped marlin, some quality bull dorado to over 40 lb., a couple of stray wahoo strikes, but trophy sized dorado were definitely the highlight. Again no significant numbers, but a fair chance at catching a couple of quality fish, these prized fish were striking on trolled lures as well as various available baitfish, of course bolito being one of their favorites.
Early in the week we weighed in one 89 lb. yellowfin tuna that was hooked into on the Iman Bank, rest of the week these tuna proved very scarce, though on Saturday an estimated 200 lb. yellowfin was hooked into on San Luis Bank with a bolito for bait and the fish was battled for two hours before being lost right at the boat near gaff, the crew had a great look at the fish, but it was not their lucky day.
A few blue marlin starting to bite further offshore on the normal billfish grounds, inshore action was scattered, mainly roosterfish, but not being found in normal high season numbers and more are now being encountered along beach stretches further north, still a very good chance at finding roosterfish up to 50 lb. now, remember to be careful when handling these prized fighting gamefish and after taking your photos quickly release them to the water.
Good Fishing, Eric